New Product Development Process

Throughout this course, our core mission is to experience the new product development (NPD) process in a manner that is meaningful and transferable to real-world application. Though the course introduces information an entrepreneur can utilize, the experience is modified to accommodate the limitations of our 15-week time constraint and geographically dispersed class. It is also important to understand that each of you may be approaching this process from a different perspective. Some of you may have a product or idea already, possibly in development, production, or distribution, while others may be looking for inspiration or a way to determine if their current ideas are valid. In the end, this process is designed to help you further develop your idea, no matter its current status. If you are uncertain as to how this process will work for your particular circumstance, please contact the instructor for guidance at any time throughout the course. You may even be put in contact with someone outside of this course who can facilitate your journey.

Though we have chosen the following stages to guide you, remember that the new product development process can take many forms and the stages may occur in different order than in this course.  Table 0.1 identifies each stage of the process and its corresponding module of study.

Table 0.1  New Product Development Process

Module 1	Module 2	Module 3	Module 4	Module 5	Module 6	Module 7	Module 8
Organization and Planning	Idea Generation and Screening	Market Assessment	Concept Design and Development	Business  Analysis	Product Branding, Marketing, and Advertising	Prototype and User Testing	Commercialization and Distribution

You begin the process, in the Organization and Planning stage, by surrounding yourself with a team of individuals that will help you work through the development of your product. It is important to select individuals who have the same mindset and values, so this course will provide opportunities for each of you to align with others in the class. Next, in the Idea Generation and Screening stage, you determine whether the idea is viable—that is, whether the idea has enough merit for you to dedicate time and resources to further exploration of it. This exploration is done by talking to people and establishing a well-researched foundation from which the idea can develop. Once the idea is screened for viability, you move into a thorough Market Assessment, which involves an in-depth study of the market, to decide whether the idea should continue to concept design and development. The research consists of exploring the market size and potential market share, conducting a competitive analysis, and other steps that analyze the market where you can establish a niche, overcome barriers to entry, and set up an effective legal environment or business structure.

With the foundation in place, it’s time to put thoughts to paper—in other words, to turn a mental image of the product into a detailed illustration. The Concept Design and Development stage will bring form to your product. During this stage, you set specifications and requirements, in our case using a top-down design and bottom-up integration model, and illustrate the functionality and appearance of the product by allocating requirements to different pieces of the design. Looking ahead, this design will be built during a prototyping process and tested by end users in an iterative process.

However, before the prototype is made, it is recommended that you conduct a thorough Business Analysis to determine the idea’s financial feasibility. In this stage, you determine if it makes sense financially to continue with the product by assessing its costs and benefits; the pricing strategy, based on consumer feedback and manufacturing needs; and the points at which the product breaks even and provides a return on investment.

If the product makes financial sense, you will begin to think more about the product and the surrounding business by considering Product Branding, Marketing, and Advertising. Your objective is to build a branding strategy that uses marketing and advertising techniques to portray an effective message to the consumer. This involves logo and slogan design as well as strategies of communicating the product value to potential customers. Throughout this entire process, customer feedback will be vital to the design and development of the product.

In the next stage, this need for customer feedback is magnified, and the assistance of product engineers or developers is necessary. The Prototype and Concept Testing stage requires you to collect data and feedback from consumers and product development experts. This stage can take months to complete, but with every iteration and test of the prototype, the entrepreneur brings the product closer to what the market demands.

Once all modifications and enhancements have been made to the prototype, you reach the stage of Commercialization and Distribution, inching ever closer to the product launch. In this last stage of development, you must strategize how you will get the product to the end user, whether by direct or indirect methods, using online sales, retailers, wholesalers, or any number of other options. You prepare the product for launch and secure the necessary financing, possibly through investors. With the launch of the product, a whole new product journey begins.

You may now be wondering how you are going to fit this entire process into a 15-week online course. Let’s move on to an explanation of the course and its layout.